Full Pundit: There will never be another Rob Ford

“You are currently a disgrace to the profession,” Éric Duhaime hilariously advises the Toronto media corps with respect to their treatment of Mayor Rob Ford — including, presumably, the Toronto Sun,where his column appears. His complaint is that said media behaved like “pit bulls,” which is apparently a bad thing, when it came to Ford’s substance abuse and behavioral issues. He suggests they ought instead to have behaved as the Quebec media did when André Boisclair’s cocaine-dusted past came to light in the midst of his campaign for the Parti Québécois leadership. “Journalists respected his right to a private life,” Duhaime sniffs.

And here we see the most common fallacy in Ford-related punditry: Trying to compare his situation to that of other Canadian politicians. It’s a bit like trying to compare a tuna sandwich to Jupiter. Boisclair was first asked about youthful (not current) chemical indiscretions on Sept. 16, 2005; he admitted to some “excesses,” but stormed off in a huff when asked specifically about cocaine. He fessed up three — count ‘em, three — days later.

What André Boisclair did not do was lie flamboyantly for five months, kicking and screaming like a petulant eight-year-old and accusing the media of being “pathological liars.” Unlike Ford, Boisclair didn’t have a brother who declared war on the Chief of Police the same morning as he finally admitted to smoking crack. Unlike Ford, Boisclair didn’t have a friend who was arrested for extortion, apparently for trying to retrieve a video of Ford taking cocaine, in the company of gangsters — who are very bad people that cause a lot of problems wherever they go, as the Edmonton Journal’s Paula Simons notes — one of whom is now dead. And unlike Ford, Boisclair didn’t spend a significant portion of his workdays driving around his neighbourhood, hiding in a gas station washroom while the aforementioned friend placed mysterious packages and envelopes into his car, and possibly spending an hour on a Tuesday afternoon, with that friend, drinking vodka and grape juice in a ravine.

This is a man, the Toronto Star’s Royson James observes,who “recently got angry at a civic worker caught sleeping on the job and demanded he and his manager be fired. How can he expect to stay on the job after admitting he hosted a wild party in his office on St. Patrick’s Day, wandered into the lobby of city hall brandishing a half bottle of brandy, cursing and obviously hammered?”

Answer: Because he’s Rob Ford. We don’t know where they found the mould that made him, but they broke it when they were done. No other Canadian politician has ever done anything even remotely comparable to Ford, and lord willing, no other politician ever will, ever again.

As such, the OttawaCitizen’s Joanne Chianello argues against changing the rules of the game to suit this once-in-a-civilization mayor. Recall legislation is “extremely vulnerable to partisan abuse,” she notes: “Want to keep an opponent away from office and in quasi-constant campaign mode? Start a recall process.” And giving councils more power to suspend members — for example, as the Star has suggested, when they’re being investigated by police — offends the presumption of innocence. (And in any event, most mayors under police investigation would step down, at least temporarily.) Toronto’s council has plenty of options to box Ford out and limit his influence, as Chianello says. “They just can’t get him unelected. And that’s just as well.”

We agree 100%. The Citizen’s editorialists, however,disagree 100%. “Ford is the very embodiment of why Ontario needs to change the law to allow municipal governments and citizens to recall, remove or suspend a mayor or other politician for egregious misconduct,” they argue. But isn’t he also the only embodiment of that need? Who else do we want to recall? In a year, Torontonians will have their say. And if they want to re-elect Rob Ford, well, who is anyone else to tell them they can’t?

So, what now? TheGlobe and Mail’s Margaret Wente suggests “people should refuse to work for [Ford] or invite him to events” — “isolate him and shun him and let everybody know that he does not speak for the city.” The Globe’s editorialists demand city councillors and Ford’s friends at Queen’s Park “take off the kid gloves already” and stage “an intervention” — figuratively or perhaps literally. Lawrence Martin, writing for iPolitics, suggests Ron MacLean ask Don Cherry — who rang in the Ford mayoralty by insulting everyone else in the council chamber — for his thoughts on the matter on Saturday night, which is an excellent idea. And John Robson, writing in the Sun, makes an eloquent plea to sympathize with the mayor, rather than gloat at his addiction and downfall.

And Angela Chapin, writing in the Citizen, suggests we take a few moments and consider our myriad misconceptions about crack — who smokes it (not just poor people, not just black people), how addictive it is (not as highly as we used to think), and how those misconceptions get in the way of getting people the help they need. As a bonus, Chapin digs up a most unfortunate anti-crack quote from none other than city councillor Rob Ford. Any other politician would be pretty damn embarrassed.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.